Any Port
by Shieldmaiden wot
Summary: ..."There was wildness in his eyes, the controlled panic of wild horses in a terrible storm..." A oneshot: Jakes sees things a little more clearly after a summer storm. Sake. Please R


Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to Terri Farley, not me.

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**Storm Clouds**

by Shieldmaiden wot

"Sam? You in here?"

Sam straightened and looked up. A figure was dark in the doorway, blocking the weird light of the roiling clouds.

She smiled. "Hey."

Jake Ely nodded at her as he stepped into the barn, the light of the overhead bulb striking his dark hair as he removed his Stetson. "Okay, Brat?"

She scowled. "Don't call me Brat. And what do you mean? Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"It's just you looked a little spooked… when you saw me."

Sam smiled. Trust Jake to use a horse term for human emotion. "Oh… it's just you looked kinda scary against the storm clouds," said the girl, waving her hoof-pick in the general direction of outside.

"Scared?" he asked, revealing the smirk that was normally hidden by his hat.

"You give yourself too much credit, Ely," she muttered. "I'm busy." Bending and running her hand down Ace's foreleg, she tugged his foot up into her hand and set to work. Holding her pony's hoof gently but firmly, she removed any dirt that had found its way in. Straightening again, she moved to his hind leg, and frowned as she saw that Jake was still present. He was leaning against the tack room door, his arms crossed over his chest. She wasn't sure that she liked the look in his eyes.

When she had finished Ace's hooves, she tossed the hoof-pick to Jake, feeling mildly irritated when he caught it easily. "You might as well make yourself useful. Wanna do the rest of them?"

Jake raised an eyebrow. "Love to. Just why I came over." He didn't move.

"Why did you then?" she enquired, unclipping the cross-ties from Ace's halter and giving him a stub of carrot she had found in her pocket.

"Out on the range with Wyatt… saw the storm coming. Said I should let you know not to go riding." He glanced at the sky through the doorway and put his hat back on; the clouds were still gathering, and the air was ominously still.

Sam snorted. "Oh, _darn_. Such a lovely day for a ride, too." Ace's ears went back at the tone of her voice. "Honestly," she muttered as she led him towards the door, "how stupid does he think I _am_?" She shot Jake a quelling look as he opened his mouth. "_Don't_ answer that."

The steady thuds of Ace's hooves on the wooden floor were suddenly overpowered as a crackling thunderclap rumbled into being. Ace stiffened, his ears flat against his mane, and let out a shrill whinny which carried over the booming thunder.

Sam's mouth dropped open. "Wow…" The thunder stopped abruptly, and she sighed. Ace unfroze, only to jerk his halter from Sam's grasp as a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the dusty land. Jake was by Sam's side in a moment, his firm hands on the halter, his gentle voice coaxing Ace's nervous hooves back to the ground. Sam watched, abashed, as Ace responded to Jake's soothing voice; the little pony's nostrils flared less and less as Jake stroked his nose.

She reached up to scratch her pony between the ears, and he blew a huff of warm air in her direction. She smiled, and murmured, "Whoa there, good boy. It's only thunder. You should be used to storms."

But the next boom of thunder caused both her and Jake to turn; Ace was by now so lulled by their ministrations that he did little but prick his ears towards the doorway. Jake held on to the pony's halter as Sam crept to the door and looked out into the yard. The horses were huddled in the far corner of the ten-acre pasture, and looked wary. The clouds were tossing heavily above them, and while she watched, lightning struck in a thousand bright forks over the distant mountains. She closed her mouth, which had dropped again in awe, and turned to Jake. "Okay… so it isn't only thunder. I haven't seen a storm like this in ages."

Jake nodded, and backed Ace away from the doorway before cross-tying him once more. The pony snorted and put his ears back, but suffered the indignity to his mustang pride and watched Jake as he joined Sam in the doorway. As the two humans peered out at the wild sky and the unsettled earth, the mountains began to shimmer. The shimmer sped closer, turning the mountains, the desert, and the pastures to great blurs. The rain fell over the thirsty land with a whooshing sigh; the sigh intensified into a steady whisper as the rain poured down. Thunder came again, the sound tossed and fragmented by the uncountable raindrops; the forks of lightning were skeletal, veiled by sheets of water.

Sam's skin prickled and she turned to Jake; his eyes had left the heavy grey downpour and were fixed on hers. There was wildness in them, the controlled panic of wild horses in a terrible storm; for a moment Sam couldn't think. Then she closed her eyes, shook her head, and looked at Jake once more. She swallowed: they were close enough that she had to tilt her head back.

"I don't think we should go out yet."

"Oh, c'mon… it's such a nice day to drown," he grinned. "No kidding, Brat. We'll be here a while."

Anger rose in Sam's chest. She turned on her heel and strode over to Ace. "As I said before," she said, and paused as a rumble of thunder fought to drown out her voice, "you might as well make yourself useful. Get picking."

Jake grumbled but bent to retrieve the hoof-pick from the floor. Wordlessly, he let himself into the first occupied stall and started working. Sam watched him disappear as he bent to pick up a hoof, and tried to keep a smile off her face as she turned to Ace. _At least he's good for something. I should make him muck out all the stalls too…_

But something told her that wouldn't go over so well.

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Half an hour later, Jake had picked out all of the horses' hooves, and Sam had brushed Ace so thoroughly that he gleamed from his stall like some kind of advertisement for shiny coats. The thunder was coming less often now, but the rain showed no sign of letting up. Sam sank with a groan onto the bench outside of the tack room and admired her handiwork as it nosed around in the straw looking for food. Jake lowered himself onto the ground in front of the bench and leaned back on it, resting his arm on the seat. Sam looked down at his arm on the bench next to her, and tugged the hoof-pick from his fingers. He looked up at her and grinned.

"Gonna talk to me, Brat?" He laid his head back on the seat with a sigh and closed his eyes.

Sam glared at his unseeing form, but he must have felt it because his grin widened. "It's not like you ever talk back."

He shrugged in acknowledgement. Sam drew her knees up to her chest and looked huffily at the rain outside. "You can't be comfortable like that," she said, changing the subject.

"It'll do," he replied.

Sam snorted. "Oh yeah, tough cowboy act. I forgot."

"Act?" he said, and she could picture the cocky look on his face.

"Go find someone else to admire you, Jake." Sam leaned over him and flicked the side of his head with her finger. He opened his eyes, and she saw his muscles tense: suddenly he was as still as a horse listening for something very far away. She moved back and, slowly, he relaxed once more. "You're too full of yourself for your own good," she grinned.

"Wrong again. You'd never let me get full of myself." He stood abruptly, walking to the other side of the aisle before sitting down again. His eyes were shadowed under the brim of his hat, but Sam shivered and looked away, trying not to think about what shadows could hide. When she dared to glance back, he was carefully regarding the floor in front of him.

"Sorry, Sam. It's not like you stink or anything."

"I was about to ask," she said, hugging her knees. "When do you think the storm'll let up?"

"Sick of me already?" he said ruefully, but smiled when she protested. "The thunder's letting up… but I'm no keener on drowning than I was before."

They were both silent until Jake made a suggestion. "Wyatt will have our heads if he finds out we did nothing all this time. Is there anythin we can do?"

Sam groaned. "I was hoping your work ethic wouldn't kick in," she said, but stood anyway and turned on the light in the tack room. She tossed a sewing kit to Jake, who had followed her in, and he made his second perfect catch of the evening. Trying not to grimace, Sam stretched and felt around the top of a shelf until her fingers reached the leather loops of a small pile of bridles and other equipment. She pulled the pile off the shelf, turned and dumped it unceremoniously in Jake's arms.

"Repairs," she grinned. "What, you didn't think I'd take you up on it? Dad's been after me to do this for weeks."

Wordlessly Jake stalked to the corner of the room and deposited the sewing kit and equipment on a table; then he left and returned dragging the wooden bench. With a mildly annoyed glance at Sam, he swung one leg over the bench and pulled the first item towards him. It was an old bridle; the thick thread had frayed and two pieces of leather were separated when they should have been sewn into one. Opening the flap of the sewing kit, he selected a thick needle and a spool of sturdy brown thread. After several tries, he had threaded the needle; he returned Sam's giggle with a glare.

"You're just watching?" he grouched. "I pick twenty hooves while you polish your show pony, and now this?"

Sam rolled her eyes, and chose not to dignify his bitter accusations with a response. Instead, she ran the water until it was warm and filled a large bucket; then she found a dense sponge and a bar of saddle soap at the back of a shelf. She stared pointedly at the wall of saddles in front of her and set her bucket and soap down by a wooden saddle-horse; then she lugged the nearest saddle onto the wooden frame and began washing it.

Jake had the good grace not to say anything further.

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Sam was washing her tenth saddle and Jake's pile of to-be-repaired had almost disappeared when there was a change in the sound of the rain beating on the roof. Sam stood quite still, sponge in hand, and listened. Yes, it was definitely fading… "Yes!" she said, and punched the air with her sponge.

Jake smiled and put aside the lead rope he had been stitching only to be hit with the water that squirted from Sam's high-held sponge. He glowered.

"The idea was to _not_ get wet, Brat," he informed the beaming girl in front of him.

"Oh, don't be such a downer," she said. "We can leave!" The whisper of the rain was fading into silence. She dropped her sponge into the bucket with a _plop_ and dashed out the door.

Jake turned off the light and followed more sedately, trying to tell himself that the feeling in his stomach was hunger and had nothing to do with Sam's eagerness to get away.

He looked for her as he emerged from the tack room, and his eyes found her framed in the doorway against the newly lightened sky.

"Come _on_, Jake. I want to go see it." She gestured impatiently with her hand.

He didn't bother to ask what, exactly, she wanted to see - but he didn't try to keep the smile off his face as he joined her at the doorway. Her hand, which had beckoned so impatiently, dropped to her side as she realised that it was still drizzling. She waited, leaning against the door, and glanced up at him for a moment before returning to her observation of the rain. He stood next to her, and his smile widened of its own accord when the back of her hand brushed his. He heard her catch her breath, and he took a deep breath of his own before letting his fingers touch her palm. She made a quick motion of her head, as if to look up at him, but stopped herself at the last minute. He didn't miss the smile on her face, though: it matched his own.

As they watched from the doorway, their hands touching, the clouds released their last few drops. The sound of the rain faded entirely, and was replaced with a much quieter _drip, drip, drip_.

She pulled her hand from his and stepped down to the wet ground. Jake followed her through the doorway, trying to quell the surge of giddiness in his chest. Sam ran across the muddy ground, and then threw out her arms and spun a few delighted turns. She stopped, swaying dizzily for a moment, and looked at him with a joyful grin. "_This_, Jake… isn't it perfect?"

He looked around, and had to admit that a beautiful sight met his eyes. Water dripped from the fences and streamed from the eaves. The clouds were parting over the mountains to reveal blue sky, and the colours of the ranch were brighter now than they had been in the oppressive stillness before the storm. Even the sliding, grainy ridges of mud were pretty, glinting with silver in the new light.

He looked back to Sam, whose arms had fallen to her sides. Her cheeks were pinker than usual, and her hair had successfully escaped its elastic; the reappearing sun was illuminating her from behind. He looked up as the ground around him brightened; another cloud had been driven away.

Then his gaze returned to Sam. "Yeah… beautiful." He took a step forward.

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I hope you enjoyed reading my first Phantom Stallion story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please leave a review!

Shieldmaiden wot


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